All of Doctor Who, one episode at a time!

Episode 048 – “Day of Reckoning”

So I think the screencap I used for the last article was actually from a different episode of this serial, since I don’t recall seeing that exact shot, and I picked the screencap before I actually sat down to watch. I’ve done the same again, but I assume in this case I have the right episode.

Man, William Hartnell looks different in color.

When we last saw our heroes, they’d launched an attack on the Dalek saucer, which seemed to have mixed results. Now we see the fallout of this, or the “reckoning”.

The Dalek fight back against the humans is kind of interesting, but it goes on a bit long. Still, it’s nice to see Daleks panic, as they so often do.

Most of the terror scenes in the old series don’t really work for me, but the scene where David and Susan are hiding together as they hear a man being hunted and killed off screen was very nicely staged, and quite effective.

Oh. My. God. I forgot this was the episode. The episode with the best ever chase scene in any old series episode. This is the episode with the wheelchair chase scene that has a bongo score overlaid on it.

It’s hard to put into words just how awesome and weird this whole scene is. First, it’s a chase scene where the music consists of bongos. Second, it’s a chase scene that involves a wheelchair. Third…you don’t need a third. You have a chase scene with bongos and a wheelchair.

Ok, all that aside, the chase does have a fairly weak ending, and, man, does it ever go on way too long. But those bongos…